Bitcoin mining difficulty increased 13.5% and broke the previous record

Bitcoin mining difficulty increased 13.5% and broke the previous record
This is the strongest increase since May 2021. Cryptocurrency mining complexity rises as computing power increases

On Oct. 10, bitcoin mining complexity rose 13.55%, the biggest increase since May 2021, when the complexity jumped 21.5%. Usually the figure increases or decreases within 10% every two weeks. The previous record was on Sept. 14, when the complexity reached 32.05 T (difficulty target).

The complexity of the net defines the amount of processing power needed to find a new bitcoin block in the blockchain. This parameter varies once every 2016 blocks, or approximately twice a week. This is necessary to maintain a block time of about 10 minutes.

According to BTC.com, the complexity is now 35.61 T with a network hash rate (total running capacity) of 259.52 EH/s, which is also a record high. This increase in numbers suggests that the number of miners is increasing and the competition among them is growing.

At the same time, given the current price of bitcoin, the profitability of mining is close to zero. According to experts, at a price of $20,000 per bitcoin the profitability of mining enterprises is close to the cost price (about $15,000 -17,000) and in some cases goes into the negative.

As of 2:40 p.m. on October 10, bitcoin is trading near the $19,300 mark, showing a daily decline of 1%. The first cryptocurrency has a market capitalization of $371 billion with a daily trading volume of $17 billion, according to CoinGecko.